celebrating our common abilities

Fr Cyril talks about his life, work and his challenges on talk show TV in Seoul Korea. You don’t need to understand sign language to see the emotions and inspiration he provokes from the hosts and viewers. Also how he communicates with interpreters using hand-on sign language is valuable to see. Communication and deafblindness are NO barriers to success, only our perceptions and ability to listen and learn from ourselves and our personal experiences can either stop us or launch us into life.
He talks about the ‘gift of disability’ to help us understand courage, patience and perseverance in life and overcome our personal challenges.
(Hopefully we can get an English translation soon)

Fr. Cyril Axelrod will be the first deafblind person in history to be awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) by the Queen of England for his international work supporting deafblind people round the world, and his work developing deafblind training services with the Hong Kong Society for the Blind for the past 5 years.
This was announced on Saturday 15th June 2013 as part of the Queens Birthday Honours List.
This is a great honour and achievement, and he will be accepting this award on behalf of ALL deafblind people around the world.

His life and faith in God is something that should be shared not only with the Deaf and Deafblind people around the world but with the hearing also. His story is a moving tribute to ‘triumph over adversity’.

However, what many do not realise it that his life story is only the beginning…

He may be Blind, but Fr. Cyril has a vision he wishes to share with the world.

He may be Deaf, but he has words that he desperately wishes to speak and for others to listen to and to work together with him to develop.

Father Cyril Axelrod has a vision of INCLUSIVE COMMUNITIES. Where able and disabled people work and learn from each other through a model of EDUCATIONAL EMPOWERMENT.

Fr. Cyril wishes to challenge the world to hear his call to EMPOWER and LEARN from disabled people. He truly believes disabled people and children are ‘Angels sent from God’ to help us all to learn valuable lessons of unconditional love, trust, hope, faith and inner peace.

However it is only through interacting and empowering these people and children to ‘shine their light on the world’ that we are able to learn these valuable life lessons, which sad to say is happening rarely at this present time.

Fr. Cyril sees his Deafblindness as a blessing and a powerful teaching tool to help others.

Unfortunately until this time only those who knew sign language or deafblind comunication methods have been able to personally access the wisdom of Fr. Cyril and hear what he has to say.

Due to the advances in technology in braille communication devises, Fr. Cyril is now able to use the internet, email and text message services.

It is hoped that through media services such as this blog, Fr. Cyril will be able to have access to anyone who wishes to communicate with him from anywhere in the world, and also a platform in which to share his profound insights and ideas with those that are interested.

It is my hope and prayer that the rest of the world has the honor of knowing and experiencing the profound faith and wisdom that can only come from such a person as Fr. Cyril Axelrod – a true Saint of the 21st century.

Please feel free to leave comments for Fr. Cyril to read and your email address if you wish him to respond.